The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1887-04-07
OCEANS OF SWEETS.
WHERE TONS OF CANDIES ARE MADE
DAILY FOR DAINTY PILATES.


Pretty Girls Pile Up Hills of Bon Bons
and Mountains of Notwithstanding
the Cocoa Bean.
With fear and trembling, and a heart
surcharged with anxiety lest somebody
Jhould see him, a reporter made his way
into a candy factory the other day. He
took a slim legged dude along with him to
swear to an alibi in case of need
A door opened and shut and the visitors
found themselves in a room which at first
sight might have been taken for machine
shop. PonderOus wheels revolved noise
lessly, and upon every side great engines
stretched and drew back their long steel
arms, engaged upon some unknown but
titanic task. The odor of chocolate was
well nigh overpowering. The reporter
stepped forward to an enormous bowl of
polished copper and gazed into its depths A
strange sight greeted his eyes. Within the
interior of this great copper vessel revolved
two large mill stones, while steel rake like
implement, constantly in motion, directed
a river of rich brown chocolate so that It
flowed steadily under the wheels It was
extraordinary how this mighty torrent
twisted in and out-a great writhing boa
constructor struggling to escape
''That is the grinder" remarked the
superintendent. ''That stuff in there is
simply the crushed cocoa bean and sugar.
1t looks semi-liquid, of course, but that is
because of the essential oil of the beam"
Near the grinder stood a machine some
thi'g like a great coffee mill. The cocoa
beans in their entirety were turned into
hopper at the top and issued in the form of
liquid into large vat beneath.
Chocolate making is rather complicated
process. The beans are first placed in
NEhi d1.ioc
Next they are roasted. Machine No. 8
cracks them, cleans them, throws out the
shells a Id the germ, and preserves the ker
mel. After this the kernels are ground with
sugar; the half made chocolate in heated in
an oven then passed through three finishing
machines, and finally comes into the hands
of pretty young girls, who wrap it in silver
foil and box it.
In a small room well lighted and venti
lated and scrupulously clean-as, indeed, was
the entire factory-five men were at work.
They looked like band of Brazilian plant
ers who had been lifted up bodily and set
down in the middle of a Canadian snow
storm. They were clothed from head to foot
in SpotleSS cOtton-cotton coats, cotton
aprons cotton trousers cotton blouses and
cotton caps. A white powder drifting
through the apartment had settled on their
mustaches and faces, to say nothing of their
Over huge copper caldron, heated beneath
by coil of sinuous steam pipes leaned
one of these queer white figures. In his
hand he held a gigantic spoon, and every
now and then he stirred the contents of the
great vessel vigorously.
The reporter peered over the brink and saw
a mass of snow white substance about the
consistency of buttermilk
TRY some?'' queried the superintend-
ent, as he thrusts ladle into the vat.
1t was marshmallow, but such marsh
mallowi 1t took two ladlefuls to quiet the
dude, and even then he looked longingly at
the copper as the party turned away.
Through a narrow passagway past Gu
rious machine which husked almonds and
blanched them at the rate of 10000 min
ute, and through a swinging door into fairy
land. At four long tables sat forty girls,
and every one of the forty was young and
pretty, ana every one of them wore a
natty little apron and a bewitching little
white null cap. 1t fairly took the dudes
breath away. Each girl was armed with.
plated spoon with long handle and in
front of each stood a tiny gas stove sur
mounted by tiny copper kettle. The ket-
ties shone brightly and so did the faces of
the girls as they glanced up from their work
Each little can was about half full of colored
paste. One girl had green paste, colored
with pistachio nuts; the next, paste of a
violet hue; and besides, there were crushed
strawberry paste, seal brown paste, sky
blue PASTE yellow paste, and paste of every
other imaginable shade. The walls of this
grotto of the sirens were literally composed
of candy. Tier after tie of shelves were
there, heaped as high as one could reach
with tin slabs containing rows of parti-
colored bonbons.
Another room, more pretty girls, more
bonbons. Again another room containing
three enormous watts, copper, as usual.
Into each vat protruded an air pipe like the
one seen in the marshmallow room. These
cauldrons, however, were supported on an
incline of forty-five degrees, and so ar
ranged that they revolved at great speed.
Within each, hopping about literally like
peas g griddle, were 1875 pounds of
sugared almonds. Think of til
Next the cream room. Here stood huge
vessels filed with paste of all favors-rasp-
berry, strawberry, chocolate Vanilla pis-
tachio, goodness knows what else These
pastes serve for the various sorts of fine
confectionery. There were also buckets of
''crystal, :" compound of sugar used for
glazing. In this room men were shoveling
''cream, i.e., sugar, water and fiavoring,
with wooden trowels as recklesSly as it it
wasn't good to eat and as if young men
were not alive to pay 81 pound for it.
Another large room, and this time fifty
girls, positively prettier, if that were posi-
BILE, than the first two galaxies. Each girl
was armed with queer little two-pronged
fork, and before each was kettle of choco-
late and tin plate fun of creams of various
colors and shapes. TIE girls took the creams
up on their little forks, soused them in the
chocolate stew, twisted them about in it,
fished them out again, and placed them on
long tin slabs to dry. There were many
more interesting sights in the candy factory.
In the packing department more girls, pretty
of course, wrapped the bonbons in paper
and the chocolates in foil, and slowed them
away in neat boxes. Then there was q
storekeeper's room, which smelled like
grocer's shop with all the red herrings and
soap and other i'll smelling things relegated
to the front sidewalk. In capacious cellars
beneath the building were stored away in
bins ~, 900 bottles of fruit extracts, and
these only represented the supply for one
year. Then, too, there were the engine
room and the carpenters shop, and the
chocolate storing rooms, and large marble
slabs for cooling taffy, and 101 useful and
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